


From the Attic of Her House (where she hid herself for days)

by fairymuses (fairyminseok)



Series: Poison Oak [1]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pianist, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 08:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairyminseok/pseuds/fairymuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between first place and gold auditoriums, back rooms and balconies, between tears and smiles, between white walls and the cool touch of wood, there is always love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Attic of Her House (where she hid herself for days)

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: car/pedestrian accident, implied depression/PTSD, internalized homophobia  
>  _Pianist!AU. Title from Wild Sweet Orange's 'Night Terrors'_
> 
> _Written initially for redeuvelvet_

  
[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](http://favim.com/orig/201104/29/Favim.com-28620.jpg)   


  
  
  
Joohyun and Seulgi have known each other for what seems like forever, for what seems like their entire lifetime. And it basically _has_ been an entire lifetime, competing and playing, little hands, and fragile fingers skittering across keys, friendly rivals at times, and others spiteful pre-teens.  
  
But they know each other. They know each other inside and out, know each other's weaknesses, strengths, dreams and fantasies. Seulgi knows that right before a competition Joohyun will bite her nails, bite the skin on her fingers, and Seulgi knows to gently pry her hands away from her teeth. _you can't have sore fingers while you play, darling._  
  
Joohyun knows that Seulgi secretly hated her yellowing ombre hair, felt cheated when her colour wasn't as pretty as the other's on their recital team, felt like she didn't fit in with the aesthetic, the beauty of the other girls, and especially Joohyun. Joohyun also knows that Seulgi only knew how to love her hair when Joohyun loved it, threading her fingers through the strands, telling her in hushed tones that it's okay, that her hair is beautiful, that she's beautiful.  
  


[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](https://seulrene02102903.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/seulrene-3.jpg)   


  
  
  
Seulgi can remember the day they met, at their first competition. Seven is a tender age, just on the edge of starting to grow up, still a child, yet able to think of others. Seulgi remembers hating Joohyun the second she saw her, pulling her hair on stage during the ending ceremonies , and Seulgi remembers the first time she ever felt resentment, ever felt the bitter feeling of losing. She's always been competitive - they both have - and back then she was still so young, still didn't have an understanding of fair play, of compassion.  
  
Things have changed a great deal since then. They've gone from hair pulling to hugging, from hugging to hand-holding, and eventually to locking their lips together in a secret embrace, hidden away but in plain sight on a balcony outside the recital hall. They have their first kiss at age fourteen; clumsy and shy. Joohyun initiates it, just like she's initiated everything else, every step of the way in their friendship, in their dance of life, of piano keys, and always standing so close but so far, eyes meeting across a large stage.  
  
Joohyun initiates it, but it's Joohyun who breaks away first, it's Joohyun who avoids Seulgi for weeks, cutting corners and gazing at the floor, and it's Joohyun who spends her nights bent over a toilet bowl, trying to throw up whatever's wrong with her, whatever made her this way.  
  
It's Seulgi who finds Joohyun like this, sobbing on the floor in the private bathroom of their practice hall, and it's Seulgi who sits down beside her, winding an arm around her waist and resting her head down on gentle sloping shoulders.  
  
"You're not disgusting Joohyun. You're beautiful, and I like you, and we're not wrong."  
  
Her words are said with conviction, with a kind of confidence that Seulgi could never apply to her outside life, could never apply to things like piano, and dance, and things like her singing. But Seulgi _knows_ her feelings well, is intuned with herself. Interpersonal intelligence, her mother has often said, while fondly tapping the tarnished wood of the grand piano in their home.  
  


[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QGAGwmN2I4)   


  
  
  
At the age of sixteen, they learn that not every relationship is perfect, and not everything in life is going to go the way they plan, and Seulgi sits, stony faced and impassive, but boiling on the inside, a churning sea of emotions watching Joohyun play, watching Joohyun win when she should be the one playing with her, should be the one laughing with a trophy in her hands leaning over to give her girlfriend an innocent kiss on the cheek - something they don't have to hide  
  
Seulgi stares down at the bandages wound around her left hand, around her fingers, and chokes back her feelings as she grips her crutches tightly, hobbling her way to a stage that is no longer her own, that she'll never step on to as a competitor again.  
  
Seulgi is jealous, and she knows that none of it is Joohyun's fault, knows that she shouldn't feel this bitterness, this anger, but she can't help herself. Seulgi wants to cry to scream, to shatter her hand into pieces. Worthless.  
  
Drunk drivers are awful things. Drunk drivers ruin lives, ruin people, and Seulgi is ruined, is left to face life without dreams, without the one thing that pulls her forward. She doesn't understand why Joohyun gets angry at hearing these words, doesn't understand why her chair scrapes back from the hospital bed, or why the tears flow down her face until Joohyun turns in the doorway and glares at her.  
  
"What am I to you if you don't even think of me? I thought I was pulling you forward."  
  
Seulgi feels selfish, screams at Juhyun from her hospital bed, pain searing through her veins from her fingertips to her heart, tells Juhyun that she doesn't matter, that nothing fucking matters because she's broken, she's crippled, and she'll never be able to play again, and simple human interaction means nothing in the form of lost self love.  
  
Joohyun doesn't understand, but she never will understand. Joohyun is an Aries, simple but complicated, headstrong and practical, and she doesn't understand the worms and tendrils of Seulgi's imagination, of Seulgi's pain and will never understand why she has to be so fucking selfish.  
  
Seulgi is an Aquarius, stoic and detached, simple but complicated, drawn back and resentful, claiming to be a plethora of things she never could be. Seulgi is an enigma, a confusing mesh of a human being, but she loves Joohyun so much, and she knows what she's screaming is wrong, but the girl just doesn't see it.  
  
But Seulgi wasn’t conscious to see Joohyun screaming in the waiting room, to see her break down at seeing her lover broken in a bed, to hear that she’s a mess.  
  
Sometimes fate twists in the most horrendous ways, tearing love apart just when a person thinks it's perfect. Fate has the ability to break the unbreakable and to ruin the mightiest of humans. Fate has left Seulgi with a broken leg, and a hand damaged beyond repair, and a man solemnly telling her and her mother that Seulgi can never play again, will never sit on a piano bench and create love with the keys.  
  


[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6vZ__GYpJo)   


  
  
  
Seulgi ignores Joohyun, stops going to recitals, and practices and competitions, and her mother sells the grand piano and all of her keyboard equipment, encourages Seulgi to find a new hobby, and Seulgi tries to explain, tries to tell her through tears that being a pianist isn’t just a hobby.  
  
“I have nothing left Mother. I have nothing to live for.” She chokes out the words, sounds empty, and her Mother cradles her in her arms, petting her daughter’s hair softly, doing everything she possibly can but it’s not enough, not enough for Seulgi to stop crying, for her to break out a smile.  
  


[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](https://classicalcybelle.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/girl-looking-out-window.jpg)   


  
  
  
The worst thing for Joohyun to face is the one she loves breaking down and she can’t be there to help, because Seulgi doesn’t want her there, doesn’t want anyone there. Joohyun is helpless, feels useless, and her piano playing begins to come out sounding hollow, strained, without the usual emotion, without the unbounded enthusiasm judges know her for.  
  
She still wins for a while, and no one understands the tears that run down her face, as she tries not to stare at the empty spot beside her, as she tries not to look into the auditorium, knowing that she won’t see a familiar face looking out for her, congratulating her, jokingly plucking the little ribbon from her hands and claiming to win it next time.  
  
It’s the first time that Joohyun loses to someone that isn’t Seulgi that she realizes piano playing stopped being about winning a long time ago. She realizes, staring hollowly at the winner, some girl she doesn’t know, that piano playing started being about Seulgi, about supporting Seulgi, about being there for her, and cheering her on, and now Seulgi is gone and alone and now Joohyun understands her mind, and she runs from the auditorium sobbing, and doesn’t stop until she falls asleep, ragged and eyes swollen from tears and fatigue.  
  


♩ ♪ ♫ ♬  


  
  
  
Joohyun quits piano, and her mother too, sells her piano equipment at Joohyun’s request, and the girl realizes that she doesn’t have a hobby other than her instrument, hasn’t since she was a young girl. She cries again that night, and the night after.  
  
Joohyun just wants Seulgi. Wants to hold her, to kiss her and to tell her that life will go on, that she’ll find a new passion. She wants her to smile again, and she wants Seulgi to love her again, but she’s unsure of how to do that, unsure of how to fix that day in the hospital or the moment at her competition. The moment when her smile had fallen from her face and the bouquet of winner’s roses had dropped to the floor, and she’d watched Seulgi leave her, watched her disappear.  
  
Joohyun waits. She gives Seulgi time, gives her space, because she _knows_ her, knows her girlfriend better than the other thinks, and so she waits. She paces her room, her house, the neighbourhood. She spends Seulgi’s birthday without her, staring out her window at soft falling snow, knowing that if the accident hadn’t happened, if Seulgi had stayed whole, they’d be playing at the mid-winter special, dressed in silk outfits of white.  
  
Joohyun wonders what Seulgi feels, wonders what she’s doing at this moment, and she sobs into her hands, wondering when everything is going to be okay again.  
  


♩ ♪ ♫ ♬  


  
  
  
The day of her birthday, Seulgi waits by her door, feels a false hope bubbling up inside of her, wants Joohyun to show up at her door, to take her into her arms, and tell her that it’s okay, that she doesn’t care that Seulgi is useless, that she doesn’t care that she’s flawed.  
  
But Joohyun never comes, and Seulgi curls up in her [attic bedroom](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/17/article-2038466-0DF1437F00000578-918_634x400.jpg) on the floor by the window, ignoring the wincing pain in her hand, and the ache of her bones. Sleeping on the floor has become normal to her, and she finds a strange comfort in the wooden boards, and the moonlight hitting her back. The bed that she had her mother buy when was young, so that Joohyun could sleep over hasn’t been used in years, but it’s still a grim reminder to her that she ruined everything, that she’s alone and it’s her fault.  
  
Somewhere in her mind she imagines Joohyun, scared all those years ago of being a lesbian, terrified of the outside world, and Seulgi can’t figure out where her strength has gone, and she _knows_ she’s being ridiculous, it’s just piano, it’s just a teenage relationship, but her heart _hurts_ and her mind is numb, and she doesn’t hate Joohyun anymore, doesn’t even hate her hand anymore, she just wants to fix everything and have her girlfriend back.  
  


[♩ ♪ ♫ ♬](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25QXnhVijQ)   


  
  
  
Joohyun stands outside the door to Seulgi’s 3-story house, and she’s sweating, nervous, on the verge of tears as her anxiety hits her full force. Joohyun is scared, feels like the shy young girl she used to be, crying in bathrooms because she kissed a girl, but she can’t help it, isn’t brave but she’s about to try.  
  
Balancing a bouquet of flowers - the same they would be awarded winning a competition - and a very familiar winner’s ribbon, she plucks up the courage, and knocks on the door not once, but three times. Seulgi’s Mother answers, the face of a stranger to Joohyun who hasn’t seen her in months.  
  
“Joohyun?” The woman sounds confused, shocked even, and Joohyun knows deep down it’s her fault, and she feels the tears well up in her eyes and threaten to spill as she chokes out her words.  
  
“Is Seulgi here?”  
  
Seulgi’s Mother pauses, and for a brief, terrifying moment Joohyun thinks she’s not going to let her in, but then she silently steps aside, giving Joohyun a curious look, before saying, “she’s in her room” quietly.  
  
Joohyun treads the stairs carefully, and she stands again, outside another door, and this one is ten times worse than the last, and her breath stutters as she knocks, and she drops the bouquet upon seeing the face of the girl she’s spent three months crying over, and a whole lifetime loving, and she sobs openly, unaware of her surroundings, unaware in her hysterics that warm, thin arms are circling her, and she looks up, looks into Seulgi’s eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen to you, or to us and I just love you so much so I brought you flowers and I know everything isn’t okay and won’t be for a while, but-”  
  
Joohyun stops her rambling, scrambling to retrieve the winner’s medal from the floor and she shoves into Seulgi’s hands, and she hopes, wishes, _needs_ her to remember.  
  
“Take it. It’s the first medal I ever won. Remember? Our first competition. It means nothing to me now, because I quit. Because it was always about you and I just want you.”  
  
Seulgi doesn’t speak, looks like she can’t speak, and awkward silence fills the air, only broken by Joohyun’s sobs, and they sit there, just looking at each other, and Joohyun reaches out and takes Seulgi’s hand, the one that’s uninjured.  
  
“I was brave this time, just like you were that time, and you should be brave again, and we should be brave together, because that matters.”  
  
“I love you Joohyun.”  
  
When Seulgi finally speaks her voice is quiet, soft, yet her eyes bore into Joohyun’s with intensity, and she leans forward, kisses her hard, kisses her with all the pent of feelings, all the emotions, all the want built up over their separation and she smiles, not yet warmly, but something is there.  
  
“We’ll work things out. But you take the ribbon back. It belongs to you, and never to me. Maybe you can curl up with me on the floor for a nap and the sunlight can bathe us and we’ll forget for a while.”  
  
Joohyun blinks, confused by Seulgi’s words, confused by the damaged girl before her, and she realizes that something like this can’t just be cured by her presence, or by flowers, or by anything really. So she concedes, and she lays down on the floor with the girl.  
“Don’t worry Joohyun, I’ll be okay, I’m always okay.”  
  
Seulgi falls asleep with a familiar weight in her arms, and her chest feels heavy, but in a different way than usual, and for once, for the first time since her life was thrown off-balance, the sunlight feels hopeful, and later, so does the moonlight. 


End file.
